Work Keys

Wendy:  8800, wonderful, thank you so much Sam.  Bill, welcome and thank you for joining us.

Bill:  Yes, good morning

Wendy:  Of course you are the manager of CMC South Carolina Steel.  Tell us a little about South Carolina steel and how you guys came to use work keys.

Bill: Well South Carolina steel has been in the Greenville area for about 54 years now.  We have been a long term employer and we are involved with the fabrication of structure of steel for high rise buildings and various other types of structures that use our products for that.

Wendy:  Okay and how did you come to use Work Keys

Bill:  I was first introduced to it several years ago at one of our HR conferences held within our CMC corporate offices and we had a gentleman there who brought work keys into our steel mill down in Cayce, SC and that was a very successful venture with that program there so it something we always wanted to be involved with to take advantage of a opportunity to bring up the level of experienced and skilled people in our manufacture process.

Wendy:  Now how has it benefited you?  Have you noticed a lot of great benefits, like the turn over rate is probably a lot less than it was prior to using Work Keys.

Bill:  Well absolutely, we have a very low turn over rate and it has helped with that.  It also has helped our employees to assume responsibilities on the job and to help make decisions and help to become involved with a person who works behind them and in front of them in the production process.

Wendy:  Absolutely, now is this something that you would recommend for any company to use Work Keys to help with the job to help selecting the right candidate, meet the best skills for the job that you guys are hiring for?

Bill:  Absolutely, I certainly would and I would mention those companies who are bringing in new equipment and who want to identify entry levels employees who have a higher level of aptitude skills and experience in skilled positions.

Wendy:  Right

Bill: Also, those companies who have processes you know that are on going right now and they are not satisfied with the level of production and employee involvement.

Wendy:  sure

Bill:  with those processes. 

Wendy: Sure

Bill:  To increase the interest level of the employees

Wendy: Right

Bill:  in their jobs in the company that they work for

Wendy:  Sam, let me ask you is Work Keys would you say, designed for manufacturing companies or would you say it can be used for any company or particularly the assessment portion of the keys

Sam:  The primary users that we’ve seen this far in the upstate have been primarily manufactures but the Work Keys job profiler and assessment system could be used for essentially any position within any organization

Wendy:  Okay, gotcha you and again its important to point out that’s good. now one of the other things I wanted to ask you is this also being done around the country or is it select areas in the US that’s doing it or Is it becoming more and more popular I guess is my question.

Sam:  Its being used throughout the US.  It is becoming more and more popular.  I mentioned the career readiness certificate we are offering ACT which is the publisher and developer of the Work Key system has announced and rolled out a national career readiness certificate program so the career readiness certificate program is becoming a nation wide work readiness credential.  and several states have become Work Keys states as South Carolina is becoming including the state of Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, just to mention a few.

Wendy:  Absolutely, well I think its a great program and I think it provides a lot of benefits to companies to really find out what it is, what the skills are they are looking for and it certainly helps in the aid of finding good qualified candidates to help with the retention like we talked about earlier and reduce the turn over rates so I think its great. Thank you very much for joining us.  I appreciate you taking the time to talk about work keys.  If you are interested in learning more about work keys certainly give us a call or visit us on line and if you are interested in speaking to Sam. Sam’s number is 250-

Sam: 8058

Wendy: 8058. Thanks a lot and we will see you next time on momentum.